Madness of Equestria
by Lammergeier
Summary: Something insidious has entered Equestria from a world riddled with evil, and a group of explorers flung into the world by accident are its only hope. If only they could go five minutes without sticking their hooves in their mouths so everypony else could realize it. [Rating for language, some violence]
1. Landfall

Madness of Equestria

Chapter 1: Landfall

A/N: YEAH YOU HEARD ME. CROSSOVER CRACK TIME.  
Out of curiosity I went to see what there is as far as Warcraft/Pony fics, and golly I wanted to make my own. I NEEDED TO MAKE MY OWN. This is entirely ridiculous, just a forewarning. Although I'm not going pure ridiculous comedy, just...ridiculous. It's a legitimate story, honest. Do you _really_ expect me to write something without a plot?  
Also I suck at limericks. I'm sorry. But I love them. So much.

* * *

The trek up the mountain had been an arduous one, but the summit was in sight, and the realization of Chamomile Tea's dream was within reach. They had all laughed at her when she said she had discovered a way to achieve ultimate power. They had laughed even harder when she had revealed that the method was shown to her via hallucination after imbibing an experimental batch of tea. Their laughter had ceased to matter as her vision-fueled research continued, pushing her into a frenzy of note-scrawling and causing her to mutter in tongues even while she was not under the influence of her psychedelic teas.

Her tea business eventually went under as more and more ponies shied away from her eccentricities, not that it mattered. She spent every last cent she had, but she had finished her design, and with a cackle of insanity, proclaimed to the whole town that they would soon be bowing to her, but she would never accept their apologies and would dine upon their hearts as she built a throne from their bones. She had then set off to the highest mountain top in Equestria, where she now stood, chest heaving in triumph.

She scrawled runes and scripts into the ground with charcoal and chalk, set up a few gems that she had cut into very precise specifications, and unrolled a scroll filled with scribbles that could not be deciphered by anyone on this planet except herself. She then set to reciting the spell. Chamomile Tea sat up on that mountaintop for three days in the throes of insane ecstasy, screaming the spell over and over until her throat started to bleed, and still she continued. Her lips grew chapped and began cracking and bleeding, her eyes gummed themselves shut to the wind, and still she continued chanting. Blood stained her pale golden fur and the wind snarled her platinum blond mane. Until midnight of the third day.

There was a sharp detonation from the space above the runes on the ground, and for an instant, a glowing violet ball hung suspended in the air. Then the ball exploded, engulfing the top twenty feet on the mountain-and Chamomile Tea-with it. From the center of that explosion an unimaginable mass was ejected, and it sailed far, far over the black landscape of Equestria before settling with a gentle landing in the far reaches of the Everfree forest, invisible to pony eyes against the backdrop of a night with no moon.

The portal that had ejected the creature shrank back down to its ball form, hovering. It would be studied by a few ponies, but eventually abandoned as this end of it was completely inert. They figured it was a one-way wormhole of sorts, but where the entrance was, no one knew. Celestia placed a detachment of elite guards around it just in case others came through, but she knew it was merely a placating gesture for the ponies of Equestria; she knew that if something decided to come through, there would probably be no stopping it. Although lately, the only thing to come out of it were a handful of ordinary stones.

* * *

"This is the hole," the tauren said, stopping suddenly. Sure enough, there was a hole in the top of Stonetalon peak. The group of five assorted races looked down the hole. It was a scant four feet across, and incredibly deep. "We've tried dropping stones down it, but they never seem to reach the bottom."

"So we're supposed to investigate a mystery hole?" the blood elf of the group muttered. "What are we supposed to do, jump down it?"

"I don't think I can even fit down it," the orc said. He kicked a nearby rock into it. There were a few clacks as it bounced off the walls of the hole, but after several seconds, the sound just stopped. "Weird," he muttered.

"I don't think we're going to get anywhere with more rocks, Kalgar," the elf said cooly. He then turned his attention at the slight undead, who was pacing around the hole agitatedly. "Alvareth, would you _stop_? You're making me nervous."

"_Good_," the undead scrawled into the air with a stream of magic. "_There is a lot of latent magic here, I'm surprised you can't feel it_."

"I'm a priest, Alvareth, not a mage," the elf said with no small amount of exasperation. "It's your job to feel all of the latent energies." His voice dropped into kind of a mocking tone for the latter half of that sentence, and he waved his hands around a little for dramatic effect.

"Ya be a thick-skinned idiot, Kaleth," the dark-skinned troll muttered. "Even I can feel it."

"Yeah, well," the priest struggled to find a reasoning. "You're a death knight. Your existence is thanks to magic."

"_But ordinarily, he shouldn't feel any arcane energies_," Alvareth scrawled, one hand resting thoughtfully on the bandanna that covered his face. The undead mage unfortunately lacked the lower half of his face, so was completely unable to speak. He was more thoughtful than most in his position, and covered the bottom half his face out of courtesy. "_Death knights are born from dark and evil energies. The fact that he can feel this means that perhaps there is something sinister at work here._"

"Perhaps we should see what's down there?" the goblin girl said excitedly. "I've been holding on to this stone forever, perhaps it could be of use here!" She held out a small green stone. "I picked it up a while back when I happened to be poking around Stratholme. It can summon up one of those demon eyes that warlocks use."

"Whirligig," the troll said, sounding about as amused as a death knight can, "how is it that you always have just the device we need every time we run into a situation like this?"

The goblin winked at him coyly and grasped the stone in her hands. It glowed, and her face went blank. Her eyes glowed to match the stone and a glowing green Eye of Kilrogg popped into existence in front of her. It turned on the spot and wavered a bit this way and that as Whirligig got used to having her consciousness inside of it, and it promptly fell down the hole. Its glow quickly receded into the deep dark of the hole, and there was a minute of silence. Suddenly the goblin gasped and shook her head as her mind returned to her own body.

"Well, what's down there?" Kaleth asked impatiently.

"_Give her some time for her mind to straighten itself out,_" Alvareth wrote, irritation obvious on his face.

"Whatever used to be down there was _huge_," the goblin said after a few seconds. "There's a giant cavern down there, with all of these tunnels and everything that go nowhere. It's all organic-looking, and there aren't any tool marks or chips or anything that would signal any mortal work. More like, whatever used to be down there was there so long that the mountain built itself up around...whatever it was."

"That's all there was? A giant cave?" Kalgar sounded rather disappointed. "So we trekked halfway across Kalimdor for nothing?"

"At least it wasn't longways," the death knight muttered.

"You're funny, Felzakkar," Whirligig said with a giggle. "If you weren't undead, I'd like you a lot. Anyway, that's not all that's down there. Directly below the hole and right beneath the natural cavern-slash-mold, there's a portal. It's not like any portal I've ever seen though. It's this bright purple color, and there's this massive indent around it, like it swallowed up all of the rock around it in a twenty foot radius. The rock that remains has a smooth, almost shiny finish. It's really weird, because the portal is probably only the size of my fist."

"_Perhaps the portal expands to accommodate whatever falls into it?_" Alvareth mused.

"Maybe. There weren't any rocks or anything at the bottom of the sphere caused by the portal's expansion, so perhaps it draws things towards it as well?"

"Do we even know where this purple portal leads?" Kaleth asked. "I'm not going anywhere until I know for a fact that we're not going to wind up in a vacuum or under miles of water."

"_I'm not even sure it would be a good idea for anyone to go down,_" Alvareth wrote, shaking his head. "_Even if we wind up somewhere hospitable, there is no guarantee __that we would ever be able to make it back._"

"I don' fancy bein' stuck somewhere for de rest of my unlife," Felzakkar muttered. "I don' wanna be stuck in rainbow land fer eternity."

Whirligig chuckled at that thought. "Oh but come on, Felzy," she said, leaning up against the troll's knee. "I can just see you frolicking among the brightly colored flowers and splashing in the multicolored streams."

"Frolicking?" he asked, a small smile playing with the corner of his mouth.

"Whirligig," Kaleth said, his voice pained, "please stop flirting with him. It's making me uncomfortable."

"It's not like anything is going to come of it," the goblin said loftily. "Besides, he's got more humor than five of you put together, elf. And that's saying something. He's _dead_. Do you know how sad it is when I prefer the company of someone who is _dead_ over you?"

"_Can we focus, please?_"

"Focus on what?" Kalgar said, suddenly irritated. "What are we supposed to focus on? We were sent here to investigate this hole, and we did. It would be reckless beyond recklessness to go in ourselves, so can we just go back to Orgrimmar and report our findings to the Warchief already?"

"I haveta agree with Kalgar," Felzakkar said with a nod. "We should let those with far more expertise come ta see what this be all about."

"Yeah, same," the goblin agreed. "If _Kalgar_ is talking sense, it's worth listening."

With obvious disappointment, Alvareth agreed as well.

"Fabulous," Kaleth said, clapping his hands together. He turned to the tauren guide, who had stepped back a few paces to the let the group of adventurers discuss. "We can head back whenever it is convenient for you."

Suddenly, there was a sharp crack, and the ground shuddered slightly. The five stumbled a bit as the ground they were standing on sunk a good three inches.

"Son of a-" Felzakkar started to swear, but he was cut off by a screech of shearing rock as the ground gave way in a perfect circle around them and they plummeted down into the pit. They fell, bouncing off of each other and falling stone, swearing and screaming barely audible above the crashing and grinding of stone against stone. The last thing they remembered would be a blindingly bright violet flash, and the feeling of soaring through the air before they all blacked out.

* * *

The sun dawned quickly, and rose into the sky bright and cheery, as if in mockery of the disaster that had happened. Whirligig groaned as rays hit her eyelids, easily piercing through them to stab at her retinas. She groaned and rolled over a bit, kicking her legs. She then froze. Something wasn't right. Her body felt strange, and it wasn't just from having laid on top of broken rock all night. She slowly opened her eyes and looked down at her body.

_She had hooves._

She rolled over on her front and attempted to scramble up in panic, but her four legs refused to work in sync and she flopped onto her face instead with a whimper. "This isn't happening," she muttered. "This has to be a dream."

"Don't you know that saying it's a dream means it's never a dream?" a muffled voice said from off to her left.

"Kaleth? Is that you?" she asked, and gave another attempt to stand up.

"Yes, it is," the elf reponded, "and please tell me that I am not a horse."

Whirligig laughed nervously and managed to get her hooves under her to stand. "If you're in any similar position as myself, then yes. You are a horse."

"Fuck," he muttered. There was a clattering as he struggled to his feet, and then more clattering as he attempted to climb up the boulder between the two of them. The former-goblin blinked in surprise as the former-elf stuck his head over the top.

"Huh, I guess I was wrong," Whirligig said, trying not to laugh. "You're not a horse, you're a unicorn. A white and gold one at that. Although your ears make you look like a unimule."

Sure enough, the elf's long ears had made his pony form's ears longer than normal, and they stuck straight up on either side of his rather luxurious-albeit dirty-golden mane. Even his green eyes glowed.

"Great," he said, his voice dripping in sarcasm. "I'm a magical beast of burden. I-whoa!" He had climbed on top of the boulder, only for his footing to fail and he slid down the boulder and crashed into Whirligig. "Oof," he muttered, and attempted to disentangle himself from her. "At least I'm not green."

"I like being green," Whirligig said loftily. Her fur was indeed a forest-y green color much like her skin was, and her mane matched the minty teal of her hair. She was sure her eyes were still that awesome purple color, too. "I wonder how everyone else is doing." She struggled against the priest, but quickly got irritated with it. Calling upon her monk training, she pushed herself into a spin and used her momentum to right herself, accidently-but-not-really kicking Kaleth off into the boulder. "Sorry," she said absently, and rather carefully started to walk.

"Yeah right," the elf-unicorn responded, rubbing his head.

The goblin-pony stumbled across Alvareth first, or at least figured it was him. The unicorn was pale and sickly thin, and was wearing the hood-mask combo that the mage always wore. She poked him tentatively with one hoof, and he twitched and opened his pale, glowing eyes. He looked up at her and jumped, shocked.

"Easy, Alvareth," she said slowly. "It's me, Gig. We got turned into horses. I don't know how. We just are."

The undead blinked in confusion and went to write something in the air, only to get distracted by his hooves, which looked far too big at the ends of his spindly legs. He sat back and looked at his other hoof, and waved them in front of him a bit. He was visibly frustrated by the fact that nothing happened.

"Ah, what about that horn?" Whirlygig said, pointing to the protrusion on his head. "Perhaps instead of focusing the magic through your hands, it comes out there?"

Alvareth felt up his head and the horn on it and shrugged, then concentrated. The goblin took a step back, which proved to be a good idea as a jet of ice launched into the sky, straight through where her head had been a second before. The mage panicked a bit and quickly got the magic under control.

"_I'm sorry, Gig,_" he wrote, struggling with the letters a bit, and they showed up a little bit crooked. "_It's going to take a while to get used to focusing on my head instead of my hands_."

"No problem, Al," she laughed, a little bit nervously. She helped the mage up and they staggered a bit to find others. Kalgar was easy enough to find as he started raging as soon as he woke up, attempting to smash rocks around him but failing utterly. He too had a pelt the same green color as his skin before, and his purple-black sparse mane matched his hair. Whirligig would have gone down to try to pacify the orc, but that would have been impossible. Kaleth joined the pair after a few minutes to watch Kalgar's impotent raging.

"_Where's Felzakkar?_" Alvareth asked. He was apparently a lot more confident in the writing already, and was doing so without a lot of tedious head movements by simply making the letters appear.

As if in answer to his question, a flood of foul magic flowed over the rocks behind them, reeking of dark rage.

"_Nevermind. Found him._"

Sure enough, pony-Felzakkar clambered over the rocks, seething with rage.

"Felzakkar," Kaleth said with some admiration, "I didn't know you looked so good in stripes."

To the surprise of the three others, the troll had turned into a grey and black zebra, his glowing blue eyes bright with icy rage.

"Oh my," Whirligig said, a hoof going to her mouth to hide a smile. "How dashing."

"Ya be walkin' down a dangerous path,  
And if ya keep goin' you'll get my wrath.  
So if ya don't stop,  
I'm gonna blow my top,  
And I'll use all your blood fer a bath."

There was a bit of a silence at his recital, which maintained itself for several heartbeats before all three of them collapsed helplessly into laughter. The zebra puffed up his chest to yell at them, but grit his teeth to keep from falling into prose again. He flicked his tail irritably and recollected himself a little bit, and the dark shadow of magic retreated back into him. He confidently strode down the rocky slope towards them.

"I love limericks, Felzakkar," Kaleth said, having recovered slightly but still tearing up from laughter. "Tell us another."

The death knight gave him one of his flat, undecipherable looks.

"There once was a troll from Dun Morogh  
From whom others would frequently borrow.  
But they never gave any back,  
So he put them on the rack,  
And the items they purchased with sorrow."

Kaleth pouted a bit. "That wasn't a very funny limerick."

"To a troll it would be quite hilarious,  
But to others it be just barbarious.  
Yet I'll cut ya some slack,  
Because our minds you lack,  
And say dat humor be a bit arbitrarious," he responded with a shrug.

"_That's going to get old very quickly,_" Alvareth scribbled. The zebra gave him a deprecating look. Obviously he was already quite sick of it, and he had only spouted three verses.

"What the fuck is going on here?!" Kalgar screamed, suddenly finding his tongue. "Why am I a goddamned horse? Where the fuck am I? What are you all doing?" He pointed up on the rocks the other four had gathered on, obviously ready to charge them and tear them apart.

"Kalgar, calm down," Whirligig said with no small amount of exasperation. "We're your friends. We don't know why we're horses, or where we are, or what happened, or even what we're doing. Chill out."

Felzakkar grunted and pointed upwards. The others looked up just in time to see a blue spot zoom off.

"We've been seen," Kaleth said. "We should get out of here."

"_Agreed__. I don't fancy having to explain anything_."

The five scrambled a bit and tried to get their legs in working order to traverse the rocks around them. Here and there were destroyed buildings, shattered timbers and chunks of thatch littered all around.

"I hope no one was in these buildings," Whirligig said quietly.

There was a muttering of agreement as they picked their way through more wreckage, gaining some confidence in their movements and stumbling far less often. The rocks began to thin and they picked up speed, hoping to leave the wreckage behind them and have some time to collect themselves.

"_HALT!_" an authoritative voice said above them. The five skidded to a stop and looked up. A group of ten or so pegasi hovered twenty feet above them, flanking a group of three regal-looking alicorns.

"You will remain where you are, invaders," the larger white alicorn declared.

"Do not move or we shall destroy you," the dark one added.

"You have crimes to answer for," the small purple one concluded.

Felzakkar grumbled a bit.

"I think we can all here agree,  
We be screwed to no small degree.  
Although it wasn't meant,  
We gonna haveta repent,  
So forgive when I say 'fuck me.'"


	2. Responsibilities

Madness of Equestria

Chapter 2: Responsibilities

A/N: YEAH MORE PONIES.  
Thanks for the encouraging reviews, I really hope this gets more traction. It's fun to write, I hope it's just as fun to read.

* * *

Princess Twilight Sparkle looked down at the strange group of ponies with distaste. It wasn't an emotion she usually harbored, but she made an exception for these five.

Princess Celestia had come to her door after all of the rock had crushed half of Ponyville, which was a blessing because the event had left Twilight in sort of a state of shock that had rendered her completely devoid of any idea of what to do. The elder Princess had filled the younger in on the gravity of the situation. The strange portal atop the high mountain had ejected the rock, which meant that there was possibly something dangerous among the rubble. Celestia had been right, in both that there was something other than rock, and in the prudence of bringing along Luna. There was strange magic afoot.

"Identify yourselves," Celestia commanded, her voice thunderous. The five below looked at each other uneasily. The pale sickly-looking one scribbled something in the air with magic. Some strange-looking runes. Twilight steeled herself for the worst, but the smaller green pony just nodded to the pale one and took a step forward.

"Um, hi, I'm Whirligig, and I'd like to start off by saying how sorry we all are," the green pony said, her voice wavering a bit but quickly picking up confidence. "This was all an accident and we had absolutely no say in us or all of this stone being here."

"What sort of accident?" Luna said sharply. "Whence did you come?"

There was an uneasy discussion among the group, and more air runes from the pale unicorn. Every time Twilight saw them, a muscle in her temple twitched. She finally grew sick of it.

"What is that writing?" She said suddenly, perhaps sounding a little bit more imperious than she wanted. "What spell are you casting?"

The pale pony jumped a bit in surprise, and a whole paragraph poured out in front of him, attempting an explanation. Whirligig waved the letters away and patted him on the shoulder.

"He can't speak, my lady. He has a," the pony paused, trying to think of a good explanation, "a speech impediment. That's our writing, he's not casting any spells."

Twilight grumbled a bit but kept quiet as they continued their discussion. Luna grew impatient after a few more seconds.

"I asked where you came from," she roared. "I will not be kept waiting whilst you whisper among yourselves what lie to tell!"

"Perhaps Felzakkar would like to explain?" the golden-haired unicorn said sardonically. The zebra snarled viciously, baring a forest of unnaturally sharp teeth.

"Don't be stupid Kaleth, we'd be here all day," Whirligig chided. She turned to address the three princesses. "We're not from this world, these aren't even our natural forms. We were sent to investigate an anomaly within our world. You see, a bright light pierced through a mountain, leaving a deep hole in the top. We investigated to find that it led down into a chamber, which housed a portal. Before we could leave we-"

"Do you really think it's a good idea to be telling them all this?" the larger green pony interjected.

"Of course it is, Kalgar," she snapped back. "What do you think they're going to do? Report to the Alliance?" She sighed. "Anyway, the ground around us collapsed and we fell down through the portal. We wound up here, like this. That is the whole story."

After a few moments of silence, Celestia nodded to the other two, and the three of them descended to the ground, followed by the detachment of guards. "You are not the first to come to our world through this portal," she said, her voice grave. "Ever since it appeared, there have been a few strange happenings which leads me to believe something else came in before you."

Twilight looked sharply up at her mentor. This was the first the younger princess had heard of strange events after the appearance of the portal.

"We don't know what this thing would be, my Lady," Kaleth responded respectfully. "We were merely sent to investigate, we don't know the cause. We aren't scholars or arcane experts. We're just adventurers."

The pale unicorn jolted slightly and tapped on Whirligig's shoulder, and bombarded her with text as soon as she turned.

"Oh! Thank you for reminding me, Alvareth," the latter said, and turned back around. "There was something down in the cavern inside the mountain, but we're not sure what. It is probably in your world now."

"They seem to be telling the truth," Luna muttered grudgingly.

"Yes," Celestia agreed. "It would be wrong to imprison them for an accident."

"But what about Ponyville?" Twilight protested. "They've destroyed half of it, we can't just let them go."

"I never said we would let them go, Twilight," Celestia explained patiently. "I only said it would be wrong to imprison them." She took a few steps towards the five and addressed them in an imperious voice. "I will believe you that this occurrence is an accident. Thus, you will not be detained. However, this cannot go unpunished." She paused. "You are lucky this happened on the night of a celebration, and the town was empty. Otherwise I might have chosen to arrest you after all. However, this crime is much more easily repaid. You will remain here and help the cleanup and rebuilding efforts. You will not stray or you will see the inside of a cell."

"What?" Kaleth protested, drawing himself up incredulously. "You can't really expect that I would participate in manual labor-"

His words were cut short by a swift sideways kick from Felzakkar. The unicorn toppled over, clutching at his hindquarters. "What the fuck was that for?" he demanded.

"Sit your ass down and shut your face,  
For once in your life know your place.  
We be gettin' off light,  
So you swallow your spite,  
And stop being such a disgrace."

"What did you just say to me?" Kaleth righted himself and took a few furious steps towards the zebra. "_You_ are telling _me_ to know my place? Like you know anything about places, you pompous piece of mercenary trash!"

"Shut your mouth, priest," Kalgar snapped. "He went with us pro bono and you know it. It's thanks to his coin we were able to take a damn zeppelin to Stonetalon instead of walking. You should be thankful. I'm sure as hell thankful I didn't have to listen to you bitching about blisters. That alone is worth the troll's weight in gold."

"You're siding with this monster, Kalgar?" Kaleth demanded.

"Yes, I am. He's _right_," Kalgar growled. He jabbed a hoof into the other's chest. "You like to think I'm stupid, and make fun of me because I'm a warrior, but apparently I have more brains than you do because I know when it's worthwhile to fight back. We're fucked. We can barely move, let alone fight, and you want to _contest our punishment_? It's not even that fucking hard of a sentence. We're moving rocks and hauling lumber. What are you afraid of, splinters? Shut up, sit down, and take it. Unless you want to go ahead and fight _him_, but once you're being held twenty feet in the air by your throat, I'm not going to do shit for you. You can strangle." He quite purposefully turned his back on the unicorn and sat down, his nose turned upwards.

A vicious grin split Felzakkar's face, as if daring the unicorn to make a move. Kaleth wavered a little bit but finally turned and sat down, a sour expression on his face.

"'My apologies on behalf of the foul behavior of my associates,'" Whirligig read off to the slightly bewildered princesses on behalf of Alvareth. "'We aren't exactly a cohesive unit, as you can see. We are willing to do what work is necessary to rectify this mistake.'"

"I see," Luna said, doubting her sister's decision even further. "I would ask that you mind your mouths while working," she added, her distaste obvious in her voice. "Ponyville has always held a certain charm, and I don't want to see it fouled."

"'Of course, your Ladyship.'"

"A proper introduction is in order," Luna said, looking down expectantly at the strangers. "I want to remember your names should anything...come up."

"Of course," Whirligig said. "As you know, I am Whirligig. This is Kaleth," she pointed to the pouting unicorn, "and that is Kalgar," she pointed to the green pony behind the unicorn. "This is Alvareth," she said, motioning to the mute unicorn, "and that over there is Felzakkar." The zebra had taken a more passive stance and was disinterestedly inspecting a crack in a nearby slab of rock.

"I am Princess Celestia," the appropriate princess stated. "This is my sister, Princess Luna, and this is Princess Twilight Sparkle. She will be to whom you answer for your stay here. Her word is your law until she deems it fit to release you from it." Celestia paused and gazed off into the distance for a moment. "My sister and I have things to attend to in Canterlot, so we must leave now. Twilight will tell you what to do next. We will leave a detachment of guards here to make sure you stay in line. We do not do this to make it appear as if you are our captives, but only with the protection of yourselves and the ponies who live here in mind. If you will excuse us," Celestia turned, followed closely by Luna.

Twilight quivered on the spot, trying in vain to keep her knees from knocking together. She attempted to keep her panic under control as her eyes roved over the disparate group.

"Well, we should get started, huh?" she said with a nervous giggle.

* * *

Twilight Sparkle walked at the head of the group as they all headed through the still-standing half of Ponyville towards the Library. The five behind her stumbled along every now and then, tripping over their own hooves and talking amongst themselves. A detachment of twenty guards brought up the rear in two columns. All eyes were on them, and it was making the young princess' nerves go haywire. She normally wasn't one to be resentful, but she was definitely having emotions along those lines towards her mentor. These five strange creatures were strange, and the glowing eyes on three of them were unnerving. Especially unnerving were Alvareth and Felzakkar. They seemed to be unnaturally still, and the air around the latter always seemed cold.

As they neared their destination, once again the filly's mind went to the enormous responsibility that was placed on her. Obviously, work could not begin that day. It needed to begin as soon as possible, as a fair amount of ponies were displaced by the rubble, and they could not expect to be housed for an extended period of time. Especially not with winter scheduled to begin in a scant two months. So, she needed to make a schedule ideally in just one day. It was too much.

Then there was the situation with the strangers themselves. They couldn't be housed in the populace, for sure. Not only were they far too strange for the ponies who lived in the small town to accept at face value, Twilight was convinced they were violent. Especially that Felzakkar character. He creeped her out, there was no getting around it. Where Kaleth was perhaps a little bit uncanny with his ears and the faint glow from his eyes, and Alvareth was unsettling with his sickly appearance and his own pale, glowing eyes, the zebra was downright terrifying. Every once in a while he'd grin at something said by the others and would flash those fangs of his. She thought of the things said about Zecora by the inhabitants of Ponyville before they got to know her, and they all seemed completely valid when applied to him and more.

She failed to repress a shudder but she pushed the foul thoughts out of her head. She couldn't afford to be judging these newcomers before she got to know them. She was doing exactly what she so often encouraged the at-times clannish inhabitants of Ponyville not to do, and she would not allow herself to let the word "hypocrite" apply to her. She was a princess. She had an obligation to give them opportunities to prove themselves. Starting with their ability to behave. They reached the door of the library and she made her decision. She turned to address her guests and the guards.

"We will discuss further arrangements in here," she said, her voice more confident than she actually was. "Guards, you can wait out here. I will call you if I need you." She opened the door to allow the five inside. The guards looked uneasily at each other, but stayed silent. She followed the group inside and shut the door.

"Now, to work," Twilight muttered to herself. "Spike!" she called upstairs. It was still very early in the day, and she was positive the dragon would still be asleep in bed. "Get up! It's important, get down here."

"Pardon me, Lady Twilight," Whirligig said hesitantly, prodded ahead by Alvareth. "Would it be possible for you to go over a quick run of your alphabet? Alvareth would like to be able to speak for himself, as it were."

"I'm sorry, but I just don't have the time to teach it to him," Twilight said.

"Oh, nononono," the other said quickly. "You don't have to teach it, just write it out and say what sound each letter makes as you do. Al's a genius, he'll pick it up instantly. I've seen him reconstruct a chopper from just glancing at blueprints."

"I guess," the princess responded doubtfully. She had no idea what a "chopper" was, but apparently putting one together was a feat. She pulled a piece of parchment over and picked up a quill with her magic. She waved Alvareth over and began a quick rundown of the alphabet. She finished just as Spike started down the stairs.

"I'm up, I'm up Twilight. What is so important that-," the dragon froze as he took in the ponies in the middle of the library.

"_My thanks, Princess Twilight_," Alvareth scrawled into the air in perfect form before returning to where he had been before.

Twilight blinked a bit in surprise before shaking her head to recollect her thoughts. She ran a quick introduction to Spike. "These five will be staying with us until Ponyville has been rebuilt."

"Wait, Ponyville has been destroyed?" the dragon asked, confused. Twilight smacked her hoof against her forehead. Duh, Spike had fallen asleep after the Harvest Sharing, so he had missed the mass of rock flying overhead and slamming into the far side of town.

"Yes, Spike," she said patiently. "These five were thrown from their own world, plus several hundred tons of rock, and dropped on top of Ponyville. We were lucky it was on the night of the Sharing and everypony was out of their homes. They are going to help haul the rocks away and rebuild the destroyed buildings."

"But they can't possibly stay _here_, Twilight," Spike protested. "There just isn't enough room for all of them here. Besides, we don't have enough beds."

"Good point, Spike," Twilight conceded. She tapped at her lower lip. "Perhaps Rarity has room for them."

"I don't think it would be a good idea to saddle Rarity with them," the dragon said uncertainly. "You know how she gets."

"I thought about that," Twilight said. "I don't really see that much of an alternative. All of the rooms in the hotel are full up of ponies without homes, and it wouldn't be right to tell them they have to go somewhere else. If Rarity can't take them, then the only other option would be Applejack, but she's a little bit TOO far out of the way." She sighed then. "I have so much planning to do, and I have to get them settled in somewhere, I don't know why Celestia has put so much trust in me." She turned to the five and eyed them up and down closely. "What kinds of skills do you all have?"

The silence grew uneasy. It was broken by Alvareth spelling something out to Felzakkar, who laughed. A very unpleasant laugh, at that. Whirligig softly kicked the former and shot him a reproving glance.

"We're warriors, miss," Kalgar said, ignoring the antics of the others. "We know how to fight."

"I'm not a warrior," Kaleth protested.

"I _know_ that," Kalgar growled. "It's a general term. Stop getting your panties in such a twist over everything."

"What I think Kalgar means," Whirligig interjected, "is that for the most part we can do labor. He, myself, and Felzakkar can physically haul and break stone or lumber or whatever else you need us for, although I am admittedly not as strong as the other two. I'm more of a supervisor. The other two can't do manual labor well. Alvareth is a mage, you see, and Kaleth is a priest."

Twilight's curiosity was piqued at hearing the pale pony was a mage, but she fought down the urge to bombard him with questions. "Well, unicorns can use magic to perform various tasks we might otherwise not be able to," she said. "Earth ponies are strong and hardy, pegasi are swift and can fly, but we're kind of at the shallow end of physical prowess," she admitted rather lamely. "But, we can lift stones or make ourselves fly if we have the aptitude with our magic." She demonstrated by pulling out a row of books from a shelf, rearranged them according to color, then length, then difficulty, then back to alphabetically before replacing them. "It may take some getting used to for you to use magic to manipulate things."

"How do you do that?" Kaleth asked, propping himself up on the bookcase to inspect the books Twilight had just moved. "I don't know what kind of magic you have, but I've never seen anyone do that."

"_I've seen some mages do similar things_," Alvareth wrote with an impressed nod, "_but never to such a degree of finesse. I'm sure that the archmages and such in Dalaran could do it easily, but that is after years of study and fine-tuning their control of the arcane_."

The princess was a bit taken aback by their praise of such a simple action. "Really?" she said, her incredulity seeping into her voice. "It's really rather simple. I guess you sort of," she paused. "You kind of," her voice halted again. She had never had to explain how to use magic for simple tasks before, it was actually hard to explain how to do it. She had always done it, it was second nature to her. "Perhaps it would be a good idea to visit Rarity," she said finally. "She might be able to explain it better. She uses magic more for everyday tasks, I study it."

"_Completely understandable_," Alvareth scrawled. "_Knowing too much about a subject makes it difficult to simplify_."

"Yes, exactly," Twilight said with a happy nod. "Once we get to Rarity's, I'll have her try to explain how to grab things and such. I just needed to know exactly what to do with each of you so I have some idea as to how long it would take to clear away the stone. You all can't be expected to do it by yourself, that would take years. However, perhaps your specific skills and magic can be used to hasten the process, by even up to several weeks." The princess was quite pleased at that notion.

"If extra hands be what ya desire,  
I could certainly be a supplier.  
I have many at my-," Felzakkar's speech was cut short by Whirligig stuffing her hoof in his face.

"No," she said. "No, no, no, no. You heard Princess Luna. No spoiling the charm of Ponyville."

The zebra pushed her leg away to retort, but she pushed her other hoof in his face instead. "_No_," she insisted with a serious look. "The last thing we need is you of all people supplying extra hands." He relented with a roll of his eyes.

"What is this?" Twilight asked, confused. "What sort of help would he bring that you don't want?"

"Trust me, Princess," Kaleth said with a wry look. "You really don't want to know."

"No, I think I _do_ want to know," she demanded, her voice suddenly commanding. "It is my responsibility to know. You _will_ tell me."

Felzakkar and Alvareth exchanged a look.

"_You have to understand, Princess. Where we come from is a very, very different place from your world,_" Alvareth explained, a somewhat flat look on his face. "_Strange things exist, and while we are not the strangest, we are definitely __high on the list_."

"I don't understand," she said. She was actually getting a little bit irritated at them beating around the bush. So was Kalgar, apparently, because he stepped forward with a nasty look at the two of them.

"I'm sure if Felzakkar could speak straight, he'd be the first to lay it out, but as he is right now we'd be here all day and a month trying to explain it," the warrior said with some frustration. The zebra nodded vigorously in agreement. "These two, here? They're undead. They're not alive. They are animated through dark magic binding their souls to their rotting carcasses."

Twilight took a step back, her mind being overtaken by a sudden flash that rendered it momentarily blank. Whirligig quickly stepped forward to come to their defense.

"You have to realize, they're not evil," she said, purposefully standing in her line of sight of the two. "Well, mostly not. Felzakkar has his moments, but I don't doubt that he was like that when he was alive too."

"Not helping, Gig," Kaleth muttered.

"Oop, I guess not," she said with a nervous giggle. "They're not going to cause problems. We live in relative harmony with their kind, and they bring a unique set of skills to the table. See, Alvareth here is what we call a Forsaken. At some point I'm sure he'll be willing to explain the history behind his existence to you when we have leisure. It's a long story, but despite his...situation, he's a good person."

"What about him?" Twilight muttered, nodding towards the zebra. She was willing to accept Alvareth. The unicorn had proven to be rather eloquent and calm, and she definitely didn't feel anything malevolent coming from him.

"Ah," Whirligig faltered a bit, and turned to the zebra. "I'm sorry Felzy, I can't really make you sound like a decent being. I hope you understand."

"Do what ya feel needs ta be done,  
It gonna be best in de long run.  
Although foul I will seem,  
It be best for de team,  
And she'll know what to expect from this one," he said with a shrug.

"Well you see, his history is very similar to Alvareth's. Almost exactly the same, actually. See, he's what's called a Death Knight. He was reanimated to fight for the site of evil. BUT," she said loudly, cutting off the expression that flashed across the Princess' face, "he is part of a sect that defected. He's not..._that_ evil. He can summon up undead minions and such. We'll make sure he doesn't do that."

"He doesn't seem problematic," Kalgar added. "He hasn't caused any problems, and he had numerous references to his ability to work with others."

"References?" Twilight said incredulously, her voice rising an octave. "I am supposed to believe faceless _references_ for his _behavior_?"

"Twilight, calm down!" Spike said. The dragon scuttled over and attempted to placate the furious princess. "Maybe it's worth it to give him a chance to prove he won't be a problem," the dragon said. "You're always saying give others a chance. Remember Discord? He hasn't been causing that many problems, because he was given a chance."

She bit back a groan and righted herself. "Fine," she said between tightly clenched teeth. "Fine." She approached the zebra. "You will not cause problems, do you hear me? If I feel you are being threatening or disruptive, I will take steps. Am I understood?"

Her threats seemed a little bit empty considering he was a head and a half taller than herself, but she bit back her fear and maintained eye contact. He was obviously amused by it, which only served to spark anger in her. A muscle twitched in his thin cheek, and his lips tightened to keep them from curling into a grin. He said nothing, but nodded.

"Good," she growled. "We're going to Rarity's. Everyone outside. I want you where I can see you."


End file.
